Shuffle, Repeat (25 page)

Lily is showing me photos of her midnight-haired punk boy when Darbs bangs up the bleachers at high speed, skipping every other step. “You guys!” she yells when she's still a good dozen away. “Hey, you guys!” By the time she reaches us and plops onto a bench, she's out of breath and has to take a minute before she can talk.

“What's your guess?” Lily asks me.

Since Darbs looks happy, I go with “Yana?”

“Good one,” says Lily.

Darbs nods and her turquoise hair flops all around her shoulders. “Guess what I found out?”

“She's a bisexual Christ-hugger like you after all?” Lily says.

“No!” Darbs beams. “She's a
lesbian
Christ-hugger!”

I blink at her. “Seriously? After this entire school year of pining? You could have been with her all along?”

Lily whaps her. “Are you guys a
thing
now?”

Darbs scrunches up her face and shakes her head. “Ew, no!”

Lily and I exchange glances. “Uh…” says Lily.

“I'm dating Ethan,” Darbs says. “But get this, you guys. We
prayed
together!”

It takes me a second, but then I put it together. Darbs found someone who is more like her than like everyone else at school, someone who embodies two things that other people have a hard time believing can exist within the same person.

“It's like I've found a unicorn,” says Darbs, and she and Lily laugh.

I laugh along, but it's hollow.

Like me.

Itch is in the stairwell again. Apparently the most recent girl to waltz through the revolving door of his love life is Akemi Endo. She and Itch are in a corner, leaning against the wall, gazing into each other's eyes. By all appearances, the school could explode around them and they wouldn't notice, which is strange. Something is different about this girl—about the way Itch
is
with this girl.

It's the gazing.

Itch's tongue isn't in her mouth. His hands aren't roving over her body. They aren't even holding hands. They're just
looking
at each other.

There's a twist in my gut, a painful squeeze that holds and then goes away, leaving me even emptier than before.

I turn the corner into the main lobby as, across the crowded room, Oliver comes down the stairs. I pull back to wait him out, but as I do, sadness washes over me. Sorrow that isn't for me, but for him.

Oliver's hair is combed neatly and he's wearing a suit, but that's not why I'm sad. It's because of his tie. His maroon tie. It's a “power color.”

Oliver is going for an interview at the bank. He's letting his soul be crushed by the immense weight of his future.

A future in which I am nowhere to be found.

“What?” I look at Shaun, surprised, as he turns the wheel to guide us out of the school parking lot. “When did he do it?”

“A couple weeks ago.”

“But it was such a big deal,” I say. “It meant everything. Why didn't you tell me?”

Shaun shrugs. “It was anticlimactic.”

We pull onto the main road and head toward my house. “Spill,” I command Shaun. “What happened?”

“Kirk sat down at the dinner table for chicken casserole. He said he had something to tell them, and everything got really quiet. His dad put down the serving spoon and his mom clasped her hands together, and they waited. He said that was awful, the waiting part.” Shaun smiles. “Kirk said it all came out of his mouth in a babbling stream, about how someday he wants a house in the suburbs and some kids and a dog, but that he's not going to want a wife. He'll want a husband.”

Even though I've never met Kirk, I can picture it. The tablecloth, the silverware, the hush of his parents. “What did they say?”

“Kirk thought there'd be some sort of Lutheran hellfire raining down, but it was nothing like that. His parents looked at each other and smiled, and then his mom said, ‘Thanks for telling us, honey.' His dad said he'd better bring up his grade in math if he wants to afford a house in the suburbs. And that was it.”

My shoulders relax. “They already knew.”

“Yeah.”

“Kinda like if you asked him to prom,” I say. “Not a big deal at all.”

Shaun shakes his head. “It's been too long. We missed our chance.”

“Have you even
mentioned
it? Did you tell him the date?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know?”

“Why do you care? It's not like you're going.” Shaun slides a look at me. “Unless maybe you are…?”

“Don't change the subject. You should at least
ask
him. You're not giving him a chance to say yes or no. You're not giving him a choice.”

Shaun is silent the rest of the drive. When he pulls up in front of my house, he turns to look at me. “Oliver doesn't have a date.”

“Oliver hates me,” I tell him. “Thanks for the ride.”

Lily and I had plans to go to the mall after school so I could help her find accessories to go with her prom dress. She said she wanted something that straddled the line between cute and ironic, so we were hoping to find skull earrings decorated with rhinestones.

Sadly, I'll never know what treasures awaited us at our local retailers, because instead, Lily and I are in the shadows underneath the bleachers, and she's sobbing against me. “Why?” she keeps asking.

“I don't know.” I stroke her dreadlocks. “It's not fair.”

Lily's punk boy broke up with her today…in a text message while she was in chemistry class. A week before prom. It definitely is
not
fair.

“Did he give an explanation?” I ask when Lily is finally wiping the tears from her face.

“I called him during sixth.” It surprises me, because that's when she has private violin practice, which she never, ever skips. “I said I had a migraine.”

Apparently that's what we do when we have boy problems.

“What did he say?”

“That he needs to be free. That Juilliard girls are too entrenched in their prescribed world. That we're too rigid. Too—” She breaks off, then gets control of herself again. “Too focused. He says he wants
anarchy
in love. What does that even
mean
?”

It means he's an ass.
I don't say it with my mouth, but my face must be expressive enough, because Lily starts crying again. I pat her. After a second, she pops her head up. “Do you think I shouldn't go to Juilliard?”

“No!”

“But I could play violin somewhere here. Like kids' birthday parties or something.”

“Lily, you can't help it if a boy changes you, but you don't let him change your
plans.
” I neglect to mention that kids don't want violinists at their parties. “You
are
going to Juilliard and you will be an amazing famous violinist, because now you have suffered for your art.” I look into her dark, sad eyes. “That stupid punk-ass boy hurt you and that sucks, but years from now, you will be in a giant stadium, and thousands of people will be
shattered
by your playing, because your music will be so full of truth and heartbreak and mystery and…
What?
”

Lily is smiling at me through her tears. “Violinists don't play in
stadiums.
”

“Where, then?”

“Concert halls. Symphony spaces. Auditoriums.”

“Then those,” I tell her. “You'll play in those and you'll kill it.”

She considers. Nods. “I just want to fast-forward to that part,” she says. “The part where it doesn't hurt anymore.”

“I know,” I tell her. “I do, too.”

All anyone can freaking talk about is how prom is tomorrow. In homeroom, it's Shaun and Lily. He convinced her that the best way to deal with a broken heart is to occupy herself with other things, so now she's going to prom with him. Lily says she might only stay for an hour, but at least she won't go through life wondering how things might be different if she'd attended her senior prom. When she says it, she and Shaun both turn and give me pointed looks.

I roll my eyes at them. “Subtle. Very subtle.”

“Just come,” says Lily. “We'll dance together.”

“I'll let you pick songs,” Shaun adds.

“Nope.” I can't explain how prom sounds like an exercise in agony. Like a special kind of torture chamber where you have to pretend the pain isn't happening.

It was Señora Fairchild's fault. I was on my way to the bleachers when she rushed past me, hugging a giant pile of folders against her pregnant belly. We greeted each other with
“hola,”
and that's where it should have ended, except one of her folders slid out from her arms, creating an avalanche situation, and I ended up on my knees beside her, helping shuffle them all back together.
“Gracias,”
she said. “Can I ask you for a favor?”

Since a teacher's “asking” is in actuality a command, of course I said yes.

“Come to my room at the end of lunch,” she told me. “I have more things that need to be taken to the office. I'll give you extra credit.”

“I already have an A.”

“Right,” she said.
“Bueno.”

That's why I hustled to finish eating, and why I'm hurrying through the center of campus while everyone else is still having lunch, and why I see what's happening at the sundial. I stop to stare, because it's so entirely weird.

The usual Beautiful People are hanging out, eating and chattering and laughing. That's not the weird part. That's totally normal. What's strange—no, what makes absolutely no sense in my brain whatsoever—is that among them are Ainsley and Theo and Oliver.

Together.

Theo is sitting on one of the benches with Ainsley draped over him. His arm is around her waist, and her fingers are twined in his hair. Oliver is on the other end of the bench, and as I watch, Theo leans toward him and says something. They both laugh and Theo kisses Ainsley.

Like nothing ever happened.

Like none of it mattered.

At all.

If I was still driving to school with Oliver, if we weren't avoiding each other, if my heart didn't hurt, I would run over and slam one of my songs in his face. I would crow about it, about how he himself is living proof that high school is a drop in the bucket of emotion and importance. He would be his usual combo of amused and chagrined, and I would triumphantly choose something by Joy Division or Ume or Wax Fang. Tomorrow I would blast that new song as loud as the behemoth's speakers would allow. Oliver would smile tolerantly as I sang and danced in my seat, and maybe I even would catch him nodding his head along to the music.

Instead, everything inside me hardens. I turn to leave….

But not before Oliver glances in my direction. Not before our eyes meet.

When I come out of Spanish, he's leaning against the hallway wall with his arms folded over his chest. The sight of him jerks my body to a frozen halt and my heart into a racing sporadic beat. He doesn't smile, but he does edge his chin upward slightly in my direction. It's a move done by guys in bars on TV. It's a gesture that represents everything I hate. It's the smallest possible motion one can make to acknowledge another person.

But because this is Oliver and because he has repeatedly defied my expectations, I excuse it. I excuse him. I merely drop my backpack to the floor where I'm standing, right in front of the open door. Other students jostle me as they stream around both sides of my body, but I stay still, a stony outcrop in a rushing path of water.

Oliver peels himself off the wall and ambles over. He stares down at me and I stare up at him, and no one says anything for what seems like way too long. He doesn't look happy and I have no idea how I look, because my insides are trembling and my thoughts are jumbled, so it's anyone's guess how that mess translates to my face.

“I'm a decent guy,” Oliver finally says, and waits for a response. When I don't have one—because it's neither a question that requires an answer nor something I'm willing to dispute—he continues. “I honor my promises. I'm supposed to drive you to school.”

“I'm the one who told you not to,” I remind him.

“In a text message. Thanks for that.” He folds his arms over his chest again. “I thought you'd want to know that you were right.”

“About what?” It comes out of my mouth in a whisper.

“The playlist. I've been reassessing some things, and you were right about the music I've been listening to my whole life. It's crap. It's overly produced and fake, just like Flaggstone Lakes. In fact”—he pauses, running his fingers through his hair—“you were right about all this stuff being crap.” He spreads his arms in a gesture that encompasses himself, the school, everyone around us. Me. “You win, June. None of this matters. It doesn't matter at all.” He crooks a smile at me, but there's no joy in it. It's bitter, flat, lifeless. It breaks my heart. “Call me if you want a ride on Monday.”

“I won't,” I tell him.

“I know,” he says.

But he keeps standing there, looking down at me. I can't tell what he's thinking, because his expression is so blank. He's not the Oliver I've gotten to know over this year: the one who's exuberant, who cares about soufflés and bowling and football games.

That Oliver—the one who cares about
everything
—is gone.

And it's my fault.